


But We Are Still Children, You and I

by lilithtorch2



Series: CA2TWS Speculations [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Most likely not movie-canon, Not sure if spoilers, Previews of a Preview, References to The Avengers movie, Teasers & Trailers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithtorch2/pseuds/lilithtorch2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier and Natalia Romanova encounter each other again in the United States. (Based off the previews of the preview for CA2:TWS) He wants to die; she tries to show him another way.</p><p>Extra scene: Steve Rogers finds out for sure who the Winter Soldier is. (Based on the 2/2/2014 trailer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I: I'm Still Just A Boy

**Author's Note:**

> imo, my rather odd choice of an opening credits song for this story, but the lyrics fit: MSI - "It Gets Worse"
> 
> "We cannot wait to watch life kick you in your ass  
> I shed a little tear for all of you out there  
> There's no way to escape  
> Welcome to hell"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to check a million times, but I thought Natasha smirked or had a troll face in the latest preview of a preview for this movie. Apparently I'm not the only one that thinks that. (Freeze-frames for the win.)

“James?”

He never expected to hear that voice again.

Natalia?

He surveyed the catastrophe (looked at her) while his subordinates searched for their intended target. He missed her volcanic red hair (how soft it had felt under his fingers) and those emerald eyes (he could drown in them). Seeing her almost broke him. Almost. (It made him weak.)

The rumors said she was dead. (He wanted to believe it.)

He had hoped she was dead. Then, at least, she was in peace, away from this hell. (She could never leave hell without him.)

Yet here she was, working for the enemy. (It was probably a different kind of torture.) He supposed it was to be expected; loyalty to their country was something you said, not something you really did. You got out when you found something better. Backstabbing and betrayals were as common as the snow. Pawns could be turned against each other at any time. Even if Russia "valued" loyalty, they still punished and executed its people for their failures. (How Russia could operate with all of that going on was beyond him.)

But it didn’t matter.

Love was for children. He was a man on a mission, to shape yet another century. (That’s all he was.)

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Natalia,” the Winter Soldier warned (begged) her.

What she did next reminded him of the clandestine moments he spent with her in a darkly lit room. She laughed defiantly at him.

“Do I ever make it easy for you?”

He had to admit it: she never did. She was a wild creature (he was, too) or they would never have done what they did together and broken the rules. She never made it easy for him; not then, and certainly not now.

She shot at him and made a running leap off the bridge.

And like he always did, he followed her.

She was a woman, but she was still the same girl.

And as much as he told himself otherwise, he was still the same boy.


	2. Part I: I'm Still Just A Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to fit the trailer.

There were explosions and disaster everywhere. She found safety behind some of the wreckage and surveyed the damage. She had to find out who the attackers were; there had to be more than one. She peeked out from behind an upturned car and her jaw dropped. Through the smoke, she could make out the silhouette of a man marching toward her, a gun in his hand. She saw the glint of his arm under the sunlight.

That couldn’t possibly be him! (He had disappeared.)

Her ledger was dripping red, Loki had told her, but she wanted to believe that finding a personal life outside of work like she always pestered Steve to do (where was he right now?) was one way of making up for everything. She couldn’t look back; she didn’t live with regrets. And right when she was sure she could put it all behind her…

 _He_ came back.

“Winter Soldier?” (She shouldn’t have blurted that out.)

He heard her and recognized her voice. And that meant he’d be able to find her location.

“You!” The Winter Soldier struggled with the reality of her existence for a millisecond before he resumed his grave expression. He had never found a way out of that hell, she thought grimly, and now they were fighting on opposite sides.

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Natalia,” the Winter Soldier warned her.

She laughed at him. That’s what he said before their first kiss and guess what she had done instead?

“Do I ever make it easy for you?” (Answer: Never.)

She winked at him (because she could) and shot him (it wasn’t like she could actually kill him). She quickly made a running leap off the bridge. And if she was right…

After she ran a distance, she looked behind her and couldn’t help but smirk when she turned to shoot at him again.

Even after all this time, the Winter Soldier still chased after her.

She had insisted to Loki that love was for children.

Turns out, she and James had never grown up.


	3. Part II: The Present He Didn't Want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Intermission song: Panic! At the Disco, "Far Too Young To Die"

The next time Natasha encountered the Winter Soldier again, it was not an auspicious meeting. The Winter Soldier had clearly been struggling with the emotions he'd worked so hard to suppress since they last met. He was trying to deny himself the joy he desperately wanted because in his world, there was nothing. Not anymore. Not while they were on either end of someone's war. She had made it out; he was under far too much control. There was no way he could escape except to die. (Hope doesn't exist.)

And yet, she knew that hope was alive; she was living it.

He held the knife to asked her sternly, “Why did you run from me?” (Please get me out of this hell. Please kill me.)

Her response was choppy. “Well, you followed me.” (I’m not going to; I won’t!)

“You should have killed me! I was right there! Why didn't you?” (This is where I die; I need it to happen.)

* * *

“Hey ‘Tasha.”

“Hi, Clint. What's going on?”

“I got something for you.”

He shyly gave her a silver necklace with an arrow pendant attached at the center. “It’s for your one year anniversary with S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, one year of not getting killed by Fury, technically, but-”

“Clint, I...” She had a feeling this wasn’t just for a one year anniversary with S.H.I.E.L.D. She knew Clint was interested in her as more than just friends but she hadn’t decided yet if she reciprocated. Still Clint, always so patient, simply hugged her.

“I know you weren’t allowed any permanent gifts in The Red Room,” Clint shrugged, “and I figured, well, why not do something new?”

Natasha didn’t know what to say to that. She'd given presents before, but nothing that she could keep. The Red Room didn't allow such childish nonsense for its monsters.

Clint just chuckled. “If it makes it any easier,” he grinned at her, putting the necklace around her neck,

“Just consider it a debt you owe me.”

* * *

The necklace with the arrow pendant was dead against her neck as she fought the Winter Soldier. Clint had shown her a way out that didn’t involve death. Even though she didn’t forgive the agent at first for making a different call (dying was better than everything she had been through up until that point), she eventually came to appreciate a life outside of all the merciless killing. And now that she'd found the Winter Soldier again, she could show him another world, one so much better than the Red Room, where he didn't have to suffer (she didn't know he'd lived that world before).

But he wasn't ready for her present yet. _  
_

“I trained you!” He pressed one of her pistols to his heart. " _KILL ME!_ " (This is inevitable.)

She only lowered her weapon, doing for the Winter Soldier what Clint had done for her. Frustrated, he kept attacking so she kept defending. His knife pierced her shoulder; he kept slashing and stabbing. She bit through the pain; she still wasn’t going to kill him anyway. She couldn’t. For a moment, she wondered if she was being selfish (maybe). Should her final gift to him be a peaceful death instead (please, no)?

“This is pathetic; you were my best student!” (Do it!)

“You don’t have to die; I can help you!” (There’s always another way.)

The Winter Soldier's expression turned soft before it became heartless again. “Natalia…No one can save me.” (Goodbye, Natalia.)

“Bucky!” It was Steve’s voice. (What?)

The Winter Soldier slammed Natasha into the ground before his accent became distinctively American. “Steve?” His soft features returned again when he turned to look at the source. His persona dissolved into one she couldn’t recognize.He froze for a minute before he finally told Natasha tearfully,

“I’m too old to keep dreaming like this.” (Let me go.)

Next thing she knew, he was gone and Steve had run after him.

In sparing the Winter Soldier's life (a present he couldn't bear to take), she'd inadvertently uncovered an unwritten part of his past (a new chapter).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I did not expect to write this chapter until I heard news of the necklace with the arrow pendant!


	4. Part II: The American Dream

"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists."

But he was Bucky! He knew Bucky, and therefore the Winter Soldier, was real. (No, he couldn’t believe this.) Steve had so many questions. Bucky had gone through the same thing he did, then, sleeping in ice for who knows how many years (decades). But how was he discovered? Who found him? Why was Bucky able to survive? (He tried not to think about Bucky on the operating table.)

“The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier.”

Steve could tell that Natasha had been hiding something from him, but she'd waved it off as irrelevant.

“He’s a ghost. You’ll never find him.”

She had seemed so sure about it; did she try looking for him before?

But if that were really true, that no one could find him, then why did Steve keep running into the Winter Soldier? (They were inseparable.)

And this time, he could even see the man with the metal arm through the glass ceiling, running on top of the building and escaping from him. It was Bucky; no, it wasn't. (Why didn’t he save Bucky that time?) The Winter Soldier, strong, fast and deadly, was _his_ best friend, his _brother_ , of all people, the one he had lost forever. (Fate was laughing at him. Bucky was right there.) Impossible.

That’s Bucky?! (That’s not Bucky.)

No, until he could get close to the Winter Soldier, he wouldn’t believe it. (Bucky was dead. He watched him fall.) But the way the man moved, it was just so much like Bucky. He’d know Bucky’s gait anywhere. (It was a ghost of his past.) The Winter Soldier was too fast; he was about to escape off of the edge of the building. (Come on, I just need to get closer.) Steve couldn’t let the Winter Soldier get away from him like this. (Think, think.) He threw the shield he was carrying with him at the other man, expecting to knock him down. (Nope.) Instead, the Winter Soldier turned around and caught the shield.

That’s Bucky. (That’s really Bucky.)

Steve found him. (Don’t go.)

His brother was in pain. (It was his turn to fight for him, like Bucky had done when they were younger.)

Steve had to save him.

(Because that’s what brothers do.)

**Author's Note:**

> Ending Credits Song: MCR - "This is How I Disappear"
> 
> "I'm really not so with you anymore.  
> I'm just a ghost,  
> So I can't hurt you anymore,  
> So I can't hurt you anymore."
> 
> Every time I think about Natasha possibly realizing that her Winter Soldier is Steve's Bucky, all I can think of is the moment The Doctor finds out who River Song really is and says, "Ooooh D:"


End file.
